


Time to Change

by syredronning



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-08
Updated: 2010-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:43:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syredronning/pseuds/syredronning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you need to leave and come back, instead of simply staying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time to Change

**Author's Note:**

> Infidelity fic with an IMO happy ending for this [kink prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/5912.html?thread=14705944#t14705944). I tweaked it a little for this final version.  
> Many thanks to madelf for her beta! All remaining errors and weaknesses are mine.

You know you don't really listen. Don't listen to the words that are like a flood in your ears, the excuses, the attempts for explanation, the apologies. You've heard it all before.

_I didn't want to go behind your back. It was a one-time situation. It won't happen again. I only love you._

Banging someone else isn't a big deal in itself, but from experience, you know it's the culmination of all the things that don't work anymore, all the little areas where you've started to break apart.

"It's okay," you say, and Jim stops abruptly. "Okay?"

"Yeah. Let's just call it quits."

"You can't mean it," you hear Jim sputter, noticing the slight panic in his voice.

"'Course I do," you reply.

"Because of one night? Come on!"

It's not the one night thing. It's even a pretty good explanation that Jim and Spock wanted to find out if old Spock had been right. It's the words you still hear, _you're the only man in my life_, and you guess that you're the first, but not the last one. It doesn't hurt as much as you supposed it would because, admit it, you've always waited for this day.

"You're breaking up with me? What's about the years we had together? You can't just walk away because of one misstep."

Yes, you had a great time at the academy, a nice little routine of fucking around before you kind of settled down, but you haven't been able to establish a new routine on the Enterprise. There are moments in which you don't want to see him, others in which he looks away and doesn't want to speak with you, and you've noticed them for a while already.

"Bones, my god – don't do this to me," he pleads, but you're too tired. You don't want to explain anything because that would mean arguing with him, and he might win, for a week or a month, and then you'll be back at this point, a vicious cycle.

And you won't have that this time around.

"I think it's better for me to leave the Enterprise," you say. "I'll send you my official request for transfer tonight, along with some recommendations for the new CMO."

"You really mean it, don't you?" He asks, his voice flat and lifeless. Maybe you're tearing apart his heart now but he'll be better off tomorrow, and you will be too.

"Yes. Good night, Jim," you say, and turn your back to him. For a moment, there's no other sound but his breathing. Then he walks away, his steps hard on the floor, and you're all alone - again.

A week later, he sees you off and you can see he wants a hug, but you don't think you'd manage, so all he gets is a handshake. Spock is there too, with so much guilt in his features that you'll never again think he's emotionless, but it's not important to you because if it hadn't been Spock, it would've been someone else. You leave, and you feel okay. You'll miss the ship, but you're not ripped out of your life like the last time.

The transporter takes you, and you see him staring at you as if it's still a dream.

You know he'll wake up soon and keep living without you.

*

Life goes on. It's days, weeks, months after you've left, and the new position is great, not on a ship but a space station that's firmly in place. You're the CMO and the only thing they know from your past is that you're one of the Enterprise heroes, so they worship the ground you walk on. You spend a lot of your time with research, because it means not being in your quarters, and it's good for your publication list. You're invited to conferences as a speaker and are assigned to several expert rounds of the Federation.

You're busy and you're okay and you almost don't think of him anymore. And when you jerk off, which you rarely do, it's always to the idea of fucking some faceless woman. It starts to get a little tiresome, but as long as it works, you won't get back to thinking of him.

*

Then suddenly, life doesn't go on as it should, and you wake up to the station being attacked. There are intruders in the corridor and it's been a while since your fight training and most of all you just don't expect to get shot in the goddamn leg. You go down and they catch you, carrying you away to the other officers.

They line everyone up against the wall, and suddenly you wish Jim were here, because he would know how to fight, even if it's a race they've never met before. Jim wouldn't just let this station get taken over.

They pull you up and put you in front of a camera, because you seem to be the highest-ranking officer alive. They force you to deliver their ultimatum at gun point - they want money and a ship, and if Starfleet doesn't deliver within twenty hours, they'll start killing the hostages. You can imagine how you look with your leg all bloody and your body shaking, and only when the recording is done are you allowed to be treated.

*

Time drags on, and you wonder if you're first or last in line when they'll start killing people because you know Starfleet doesn't deal with terrorists. You find out sooner than you like that you're not first in line, but you wish you were, instead of having to watch a young colleague being executed with a shot to her head, her brain splashing all over the floor. Another two follow, and you're already drifting out of consciousness from the blood loss when they drag you forward to your execution.

As the weapon's pressed against your forehead, your life's running in front of you like a frigging movie: childhood, dad, your marriage, the academy and everything after that is all about Jim. It is Jim kissing and Jim fucking and Jim in your bed and Jim all around. You wish you'd hugged him when you'd seen him for the last time, and regret that you've never told him just how much he really meant to you. You're sorry for the mess you're leaving behind, and all those never-sent letters written in drunken nights. And you hope he'll never see this recording.

There's a shot, but it's not the one through your head because you're still thinking of Jim, and suddenly all hell breaks loose. From a far away distance, someone's calling your name, and the world suddenly seems a lot brighter.

*

You're beamed away and damn if you don't know the place. It's good to see many familiar faces and a few new ones, like the CMO. He's giving you a first-class treatment with local anesthetic, agitatedly talking about your paper on Argellion viruses to keep you awake. You try to discuss it, but your tongue doesn't feel up to the task, and you end mumbling unintelligible stuff. He keeps blathering, until he's suddenly done and gone and someone else is there instead.

"Hey, Bones," he says gently. "You're safe now."

You feel like crying but only grab his offered hand instead, holding it for all it's worth, glad that he doesn't pull away. "Jim," your voice manages to rasp, and then, "Hoped you'd come."

"Of course I would," he says. "Wouldn't let you die there. Never."

*

You learn over the course of the next few days what he's really done for you, the stunts he pulled to get to the station in time, the Starfleet regulations he broke. You're told by Uhura that the first news made him nervous, but it was seeing the broadcast of the ultimatum with you bleeding all over the big screen that made Jim move to action. You're told by Scotty over a drink that the captain hasn't been the same without you, and when Sulu hugs you, he whispers in your ear that you're really needed back here. You hang around with your old colleagues and friends and it's strange - you want to flee again and stay at the same time.

Jim rarely comes to visit you, and you know he doesn't want to impose himself on you while you can't run away with your healing leg. That doesn't stop you from visiting him when you can walk again. You have dinner together, and you have dinner again the evening after. You talk about the ship and adventures and people, but you don't talk about Spock. You've already heard it all, that Uhura broke up with him but that he and Jim didn't get together. You wonder why, and you don't want to ponder the answers because it's planting a little seed of hope.

The years of friendship start returning and you notice just how alive you feel with Jim. Still, it's different because you're a different man by now. You're no longer just the captain's sidekick but a person of your own, and it gives you a self-assurance you've never had before.

The time of disembarking is drawing closer and you realize you don't want to part. You just don't know how to say it because you have no fucking clue what Jim wants.

*

You have dinner together again and you don't really listen because you're busy staring at Jim and thinking of all the things you need to say. You still don't know how to start when he suddenly stops in the middle of his story.

"Don't look at me like that," he says, voice all tense. "Last time you did –" He looks away, and breaks your heart a little.

"I couldn't deal with it then," you say. "But I can deal with it today," you add firmly.

He's gazing at you and you catch his left hand over the table. "I've learned a lot about myself in the last year. And I've learned a lot about what's important to me and what not. And you are important."

"Bones…" He curls his other hand around your joined ones. "I'll try to change, but I won't ever be able to promise that I'll never screw up." He's honest, and you love him for it.

"I can't promise I'll never get angry about it," you say just as honest, "but I'll never just run away again."

It's really not that important, you think as you pull him into a deep kiss, that he sleeps with someone else if he does it again, it's important to know he'll be back and tell you. You want him and always wanted him and you'd be damned if you let this great thing go to hell a second time.

You make love to him like you've never been gone, and you eat breakfast in his quarters and apply for transfer by midday. The new CMO doesn't really want to leave, but you recommend him to a high-ranking institution and he happily ships out as he gets the new, more interesting position.

*

Next time Jim's talking to you, many months later, you listen, even if you don't really like the explanation, something about being drunk on shore leave with Scotty and a bar girl. You fix him up and take him to bed and make him remember he's all yours. Some people think you're selling yourself short, but there's more to a relationship than just fidelity.

And he makes it worth it.


End file.
